An entertainment lawyer has said that he assumes that Amber Heard may have thought that bringing up claims of abuse against Johnny Depp could have been a benefit to her.
Richard Marks was asked during his testimony if he knew of any actresses whose careers improved after levelling allegations of domestic abuse against men in Hollywood.
While Mr Marks said he didn’t know of any, he went on to speculate, “I assume Amber Heard thought her career would get better by bringing this out. I don’t know”.
The defamation trial between Mr Depp and Ms Heard began on Monday 11 April in Fairfax, Virginia following Mr Depp’s lawsuit against his ex-wife in March 2019. Mr Depp is arguing that she defamed him in a December 2018 op-ed published in The Washington Post titled “I spoke up against sexual violence — and faced our culture’s wrath. That has to change”.
“I can’t think of any actresses who have prevailed, who’ve been cancelled,” Mr Marks said. He told the court that he was brought in to look at how the op-ed may have damaged Mr Depp’s reputation.
He said the column “damaged Mr Depp” and created a “cancel situation, if you will”.
He added that companies are “looking for added value, not negativity”, noting that a film star becomes “the face” of a franchise they appear in.
“You might say Pirates Of The Caribbean is Johnny Depp and vice versa,” he said. “You wouldn’t want to hire an actor who has negativity following them ... especially in the last five years, with the Me Too movement.”
He added that “right now, the pinnacle” of negativity in the filmmaking business is “being accused of domestic abuse, sexual abuse, violence ... and what we’ve seen is almost immediately terminations and cancellations”.
He said the “pinnacle” of sensitivity against this can be found in “family-friendly companies like Disney”.
He added that Ms Heard’s op-ed was published in a “flagship journal, if you will, of American news”, not a “trade paper” or a “rag”. He said the column was “geared to Hollywood” who got the message “loud and clear”.
Mr Marks said Ms Heard was “calling out Hollywood” to take action, and that the “publicity machine was in high gear” as the column was published around the release of her film Aquaman.
Mr Marks said Mr Depp “managed to keep most of his personal life personal” before his relationship with Ms Heard and what “marked him in this business is that he was congruent, he was likeable, he was ... one of the guys. I never heard any complaints”.
He said the op-ed was “devastating” to Mr Depp, suggesting that Disney wouldn’t put him in the sixth Pirates film “under this cloud”.
While he agreed that there were negative stories circulating about Mr Depp before the op-ed, Mr Marks said the column was “something different”.
Hollywood can put up with “divas and drugs to make money”, Mr Marks said, but added that they have “drawn a line” at allegations of abuse.
In her 2018 op-ed, Ms Heard wrote that “like many women, I had been harassed and sexually assaulted by the time I was of college age. But I kept quiet — I did not expect filing complaints to bring justice. And I didn’t see myself as a victim”.
“Then two years ago, I became a public figure representing domestic abuse, and I felt the full force of our culture’s wrath for women who speak out,” she added at the time.
While Mr Depp isn’t named in the piece, his legal team argues that it contains a “clear implication that Mr Depp is a domestic abuser”, which they say is “categorically and demonstrably false”. Mr Depp is seeking damages of “not less than $50m”.
Ms Heard has filed a $100m counterclaim against Mr Depp for nuisance and immunity from his allegations.
